Rebuilding
by PSW
Summary: A brief missing scene from the pilot.


**A/N: So ... it's been a long time since I've written anything, and I've never written anything for M7. This is just a short little missing scene for the pilot - something to sort of stretch my writing fingers again and see how it goes. :-P Anyhoo, I own nothing (of course).**

**The dialogue in this piece is from the show. **

* * *

Josiah rubbed the brown and white muzzle at his shoulder and watched as the healer Nathan and several others approached. They'd picked up a few along the way, it seemed, and would be six strong once he mounted up. It wasn't enough, maybe … but that wasn't his concern.

His mind drifted back to the previous night – the star-encrusted sky, his campfire, the flickering brightness that threw the statues in the niches of the ruined little church into stark relief. He often spent the dark hours mesmerized by that sight, watching the ebb and flow of imagined emotions upon the weathered stone face of the Virgin. They were old friends by now, and he often found himself talking to her as he worked, as he ate. As he rested.

To her, or to the one she represented? He still wasn't sure.

It had been many, many years since he had been sure about anything.

She hadn't been a part of his upbringing, of course, but this was an old Catholic mission, long ago abandoned. The young Mexican monk who had greeted him upon arrival had given him only the barest history of the site, and had been gone the next morning, along with the little burro and meager pack that had been his only visible possessions. Josiah wasn't yet convinced that the man hadn't been a vision, rather than flesh and blood. He also didn't spend much time pondering that puzzle.

No, he had a mission now … for the first time in far too long.

Rebuild this church.

He wasn't the first to be given such a calling, and no doubt wouldn't be the last. He couldn't speak to others' reasons, but he knew his own. Josiah Sanchez had turned from the Almighty along with those who had so falsely represented Him, had torn down the temple of his faith and devotion stone by stone until nothing remained but a fighter, a killer – and then not even that.

A shell. Nothing.

And yet … some draw remained. Some fascination with his Maker, maybe even love, for which other people had not been responsible and that even Josiah had not been able to destroy. When he looked upon the ruin of his life he knew he had wronged the Lord – even as he struggled to believe.

The God he had been taught, his father's God, did not exist. Of that he had no doubt. No, he had long ago seen that what his father worshipped – what Josiah had rejected so violently and so finally – was a figment of his father's own imagination, a prop and self-fulfilling philosophy.

But he was also beginning to see that his father's failures – and his own – didn't mean the Almighty wasn't truly there.

So … where did that leave him?

Confused and adrift, until this battered little mission had appeared over the horizon. It was as rundown as he was – a shell, a place meant to hold God but no longer able. Maybe if he put this little church to rights – an apology, an act of acknowledgement to the Lord for what he had destroyed – he would somehow find himself rebuilt alongside it.

Josiah wasn't sure things worked that way.

Then again … it had been many, many years since he had been sure about anything.

He had set about the task in earnest – gathering and cutting rocks, chipping away the excess, setting stone upon stone – and if it did not bring clarity and absolution, it at least brought exhaustion. That in itself was a blessed relief. For the first time in longer than he could remember, Josiah had been sleeping a solid five hours a night without dream or weary wakefulness. The good rest brought a sharper edge back to his thoughts, and desire … desire for something more than he had made himself.

Something fuller, something richer.

It was frightening, because he didn't know if that kind of life could still even be possible for him … but it was also intoxicating, because Josiah Sanchez couldn't remember the last time he had truly desired anything – had even had the capacity to do so.

He didn't know what to do with that desire, if it was out of his reach –if he was no longer permitted to pursue such things because of his sins – but he still had this little church. The rebuilding was familiar now, comfortable. It didn't require anything of him except sweat and time. So he kept at it with single-minded purpose, and when the young healer from nearby Four Corners turned up one day, searching for aid in protecting an Indian village under threat, Josiah turned him down.

He was doing penance. He was building a church.

He didn't have time or energy for the day to day concerns of others.

The silent Virgin, however, was not so silent around his campfire that night. In the constant dance of shimmer and shadow, her eyes were … sad. Accusing, even. Josiah avoided looking toward her, avoided speaking aloud or pondering why, until he lay awake still under the brightening morning sky and was forced to face what she had been trying to tell him all the long night.

His father's faith had been wholly self-directed.

If Josiah wished for something more than imaginary idols, his could not be.

He didn't know if taking up his guns again was right, but he was ready to ride the next day. When Nathan asked about his change of mind, he shied away from the truth. It was too much, too soon. Too complicated for himself to understand, much less anyone else. Instead, he focused on the black birds flapping about nearby and offered a response that the natives of this land, whom Josiah respected greatly, would have understood.

"Crows."

"What crows?"

"A sign."

"What does that mean?"

"Death."

"Whose?"

"Prob'ly mine."

Nathan wasn't sure what to make of him … but that was the point. A diversion. The red-coated gambler seemed amused and intrigued, the buckskin-clad man didn't bat an eyelash, and the other two might not have even heard the conversation, for all the attention they paid. The six wheeled around and headed out, Josiah casting another glance at the cawing crows as they passed.

Death. Crows were indeed a symbol of death … but in some traditions, they were a symbol of life. So. What did this decision hold for him?

He wasn't sure … but it had been many, many years since Josiah had been sure about anything.

He felt the silent Virgin's eyes upon him as they rode away.


End file.
